Transformers 4 set to take place four years after Dark of the Moon

Now that I think about it, there are actually two pieces of news bundled up in one package here. The first is that the plot of TRANSFORMERS 4 is currently set to take place a whole four years after the last movie in the franchise, while the second is that TRANSFORMERS 4 is actively part of the same cinematic continuity as the previous trilogy. That may have been obvious by the "4" in the title, but I don't think it had yet been established just how closely the movies would be connected. And now, with the following comment from Michael Bay, we kind of sort of maybe know. Ish.

"The movie is going to continue four years from the attack on Chicago, which was in the last movie. It's going to have the same lineage, but it's going in a full new direction. It actually feels very natural how it's going in that direction... We're doing a lot of things that are really going to make it fresh and feel new."

For you Transformers super fans out there, just where exactly would Bay have to take the characters and world to really "make it fresh and feel new?" And what, if any, terrible fate do you hope is used to explain away Sam Witwicky's absence?

TRANSFORMERS 4 is gearing up to begin production with Mark Wahlberg in the spring of 2013, the hope being to hit a release date of June 27, 2014.